There’s great mews from The Times for cat owners and lovers!

On Monday 3^rd July 2023, reporter Kieran Gair (thank you, Kieran!) reported that the first feline blood bank in the UK to provide treatment for cats with medical conditions is to be set up by Banco de Sangue Animal.

They are a Portuguese group, and they already have animal blood banks in Portugal, Spain and Belgium. 

Like us, cats must be transfused with a matching type of blood, but they just have two blood types, namely A and B. 

Cats are prone to blood born disease, and there’s been a problem for cats because there hasn’t been appropriate blood available. 

If you think your cat would be a suitable donor, you can register him or her on the Pet Blood Bank UK’s website.

Pets need blood donors too!
Visit the Pet Blood Bank UK here.

If you think your cat could be a blood donor, he or she needs to be a large, healthy cat who likes being handled and who likes spending time with people.  And he or she should be between 1 and 10 years old, and weight no more than 9 pounds.  They also must be up to date with vaccinations and treatments. 

It takes about 10 to 15 minutes to do a cat blood donation – on average – but the whole process takes 4 hours, since the vet needs to make sure the cat is properly hydrated before they head home.

The Times say that the Royal Veterinary College stores feline blood but only for the animals treated at or referred to it, since it is a transfusion service as opposed to be a blood bank.

Visit the Pet Blood Bank UK here.  

PS Their own recent news is that they are working with Blood Bikes 4 Pets – this is a new, soon to be charity, and it’s working to create the UK’s first professional motorbike blood delivery service for pets!    They service will operate with volunteer riders who can safely take blood products across the country on specialist bikes.  A big thank you to Honda who are helping.  Visit Blood Bikes 4 Pets here – you can donate the cost of fuel to help!  We wish them God speed and all the best 

PPS The Pet Food Blood Bank UK  also need blood from dogs….. fetch more information here.  

And they are supporting the alpaca community by offering a collection kit and blood processing service for alpaca vets.  Find out more

Will you get muddy for Battersea Dogs and Cats Home? 

It's most famous for being in the series with the late Paul O'Grady, who helps the staff with the dogs and to find the dogs new homes.  As with all charities, fundraising is a constant must, so enter the Muddy Dog Challenge!  It sounds like a barking great way to raise funds for Battersea and so enable them to help more dogs and cats.

The Muddy Dog Challenge which sounds like a LOT of fun, with a number of locations kicking off with Derby in May.  Other locations include Stansted, Tunbridge Wells, Windsor and Leeds - registrations are now closed for the New Forest. 

Each event has two options. The 5K route will have up to 18 obstacles, and the 2.5K route will have half that amount.   You can do it at a run or walk, and tackle the course with or without a dog. 

By taking part and fundraising for Battersea, you’ll be helping us provide love and care for the thousands of dogs and cats that come into our care, and even those that might never find their way to a Battersea centre.

However, you can also do a DIY Muddy Dog Challenge - you choose your own date.  It could be fun to get a group of your doggy friends together and do a walk as a challenge.

There's lots of information on the "On the day" page, where you can find out what to expect and what to bring if you are taking part in an event.  You can register here

Find out more about the Muddy Dog Challenge and register here

By the way, Battersea also have a list of things you could donate that you don't need any more - here it is.

Remembering Paul O'Grady and For the Love of Dogs

Battersea Dogs and Cats Home has been in the news a lot recently, since Paul O'Grady sadly passed away.   Paul O'Grady had presented the amazing "For the Love of Dogs", helping dogs from Battersea to cope with their time there and to find new, lovng homes.  Battersea have a tribute fund in memory of Paul O'Grady, and if you can't get to the fundraisers for Getting Muddy, or take part, one thing you could consider doing is to make a donation to the Paul O'Grady Tribute Page which Battersea have set up?  The final series starts on Thursday 13 April 2023 at 8:30pm on ITV.

April is #NationalPetMonth.

It celebrates and raises awareness of responsible pet ownership, running educational campaigns and resources.  And it celebrates pet ownership, sharing the many benefits of our wonderful pets across Britain.

There are many events and fundraisers which take place during National Pet Month to help the incredible welfare organisations and charities working hard to help pets everywhere.  There are all sorts of events taking place, so keep an eye out in your area for happenings!

There are live broadcasts through social media plus campaign blogs and there’ll be lots of advice on everything from good pet nutrition, the importance of regular health checks, vaccinations, cleaning up after pets, dental health, prevention of disease, puppy training, kitten training, creating a dog friendly office, how to watch for changes in our pet’s behaviour and what to do about it – how to be a sustainable pet owner and the pluses of taking on an older rescue animal.   So there’s lots of learn and get involved with!

National Pet Month brings animal welfare charities, professional bodies, pet businesses, schools, youth groups, vets and pet lovers all together.  It’s co-ordinated by NOAH (the National Office of Animal Health) and UK Pet Food.

You’ll also probably find lots of pet-related businesses running discounts and offers for National Pet Month – or a part of it!  Viovet is one of these, with up to 20% off many products for dogs and cats.

So here are the National Pet Month social channels

Twitter

Facebook

Cat lovers should pounce here to “joinscratchingpost” whilst dog lovers should dig to “joinparkbench” both on Facebook.

Get involved in National Pet Month #NPM23:

• #PetPawsitivity – send a 30 minute video or picture of you and your pet, explaining what you love about being a pet owner
• Set up a mini fundraiser online for a UK pet charity and rescue
• Get everyone involved in the month – why not get the kids to create and share pet pictures and stories?
  
  

You could also share the Top Ten Tips for Responsible Pet Ownership

 Visit the National Pet Month website here.

Include the hashtags #NationalPetmonth or #NM23 in your posts and don’t forget to tag NPM and any other charities you mention at the same time!

Visit National Pet Month for more information

If they could talk to the animals, walk with the animals – well, you can walk with the animals!

There are over 20 animal walking experiences available through Virgin Experience Days – experiences to get you walking and meeting new animal friends!

Meet, Walk and Feed the Donkeys for Two at Lucky Tails Alpaca Farm, -
a great way to see the beautiful Warwickshire countryside!
£40.00 - Find out more

There's Alpaca Trekking and Entry to Eagle Heights Wildlife Foundation for Two
with incredible views of the Darent Valley.  
£70.00 - Find out more

The range of animals varies, but there are opportunities to walk with donkeys, alpacas, llamas, huskies, and even sheep and pigs and have a gentle stroll with pygmy goats! 

There's a Llama Trekking Experience Day For Two in Northamptonshire
There's one llama between two people on this 3.5 mile trek 
£120.00 - Find out more

And if you love to be active outdoors, you could look at trying your hand at yoga with goats in Suffolk (yes, honestly), and a hawk walk.

There's Yoga with Goats for Two in the Suffolk Countryside
when you can meet some social, intelligent and affectionate goats
£36.00  Find out more

What's more, you can enjoy 15% off with Virgin Experience Days (even on special offers) thanks to our exclusive code, GMS8F2CX.  It's valid until 31.1.23 and it's site wide, apart from excluded products.

Fly off to Virgin Experience Days to see their range of animal walking experiences here

Prevention is better than cure, so they say, and those lovely people at online pet store Viovet have come up with 4 simple steps to a healthy lifestyle for your pets.  Actually, reading them, they could equally apply to people as well.

There are lots of ways you can help your beloved pets keep well and fit – feeding them the right food, for a start e.g. if you want to give your dog a chocolate treat, make sure the chocolate is made for dogs and not chocolate that you and I would eat.  Chocolate for humans can be lethal for dogs, and pet food makers have come up with chocolate treats for dogs. 

Find out more about Viovet's  healthy lifestyle in 4 easy steps

Viovet’s four steps to a healthy lifestyle are as follows – you can get more information from their website, as they cover questions such as how much exercise does your dog need, what sort of diet is best, there’s information on raw feeding,

Get active

Regular walkies for you and your woof will help you both with your weight, getting out and about, and mental health as you meet fellow dog walkers and of course everyone wants to say hallo when you’ve got a pooch on the end of a lead.   Please respect the countryside and keep dogs on leads if around livestock and wildlife, however well behaved your dog is.  It’s also very helpful to continue your dog’s training when you’re out and about – we used to train ours in the middle of fields, in the woods – we were both exhausted when we got home!

Diet

As I type this, I’m tucking into my morning coffee and a gorgeous shortbread biscuit (shall I have another one? My jeans are suggesting it wouldn’t be a good idea… Everything in moderation…)

Please make sure your pets, livestock and wildlife have plenty of fresh water available to them – this means cleaning out water bowls and baths regularly.  Vet advice is always helpful, but Viovet have plenty of pointers on their blog about decoding your dog’s diet, choosing the right commercial diet and looking at raw feeding.

Tackling anxiety and stress

Some pets get more anxious than others, and lockdown hasn’t helped if your dog is staying at home and you are now back at the office.  Viovet has some tips on how to help with separation anxiety such as leaving the radio on. Start going out without them for short periods of time so that they get used to it. 

Get regular check-ups

At the moment with so many of us finding things really tight financially, vet visits may be the last thing you want to do, but please keep up to date with vaccinations and checks – a problem spotted and dealt with earlier can be far less costly to deal with than leaving it in the hope it will go away.  Grooming your pet regularly will help you get used to feeling for anything unusual that crops up e.g. any lumps and bumps that are new and will need you to keep an eye on them. 

The Pet Food Manufacturers Association have a way you can check if pets are overweight – keeping their weight at the right amount will help keep your pet healthy.

Viovet have lots of ways they can help you, and there’s plenty of advice on all sorts of pet related health issues.  Don’t forget the PDSA and Blue Cross have help for people who meet their criteria for free or subsidised vet care.

By the way, Viovet is celebrating their 16th birthday - and there's 25% off on their website!!!  They have products for cats, dogs, horses, small pets and for you! 

The Canal and River Trust look after our canals and rivers (with lots of help from volunteers, in case you’re looking for something to do in your spare time, which makes a difference).

And they have launched a #PlasticsChallenge.

They say if everyone took their litter home with them and picked up even just ONE piece of plastic every time they visited, our canals and rivers could be free of litter within one year!

The Trust does an amazing job looking after the canals and rivers – but nonetheless, these beautiful places are in danger from mindless pollution!

Water birds make nests from pieces of plastics.   Aquatic invertebrates ingest plastic – and that means that small fish ingest them too, as they are higher up the food chain.

So everyone needs to get involved and pick up litter.  Every year, about 14 million pieces of plastic end up in our canals and rivers.  We need to reduce the plastics in these places.

The Canal and River Trust has advice on doing this safely and makes it very clear that you should NOT go into the water to collect plastic out.

Don’t let litter mean it’s over for wildlife.  Please pick up litter or share the information about the campaign!   

Please pledge your support for this #PlasticChallenge.

Wow, if you're looking for a gift or a card for an animal lover, why don't you take a look at Cardology?  

This is the Dressage Pop Up Card

They produce 3D pop up cards, which are hand made, and quite amazing! 

There's a Cat Tree Pop Up Card
The cards are kind of half gift, half card!

Got a friend who loves llamas?

And they've got a great selection of animal cards, including cards for horse lovers, dog lovers, cats, farm animals, bears, labradors, owls, and even a dinosaur! 

You could support Battersea Dogs and Cats Home
with the purchase of a Battersea card

There's also a Highland cow!

Visit Cardology here to see all their cards!

If you love nature and wildlife, and want to discover more about wetlands in particular, please take a stroll around the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust’s website and especially their Discover Wetlands pages.

The Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust (WWT) is the UK’s leading wetland conservation charity.  And they are working "to create a world where healthy wetland nature thrives and enriches lives."

There’s lots to discover and learn about wetlands from their website and there are things to do, for all the family – and this is a great chance to boost your knowledge about vital wetlands and what they are and why they are so very important.  Sadly, they are often overlooked and seen as “wasteland” but they are critical for both wildlife and people and the good of us all.

Amongst the  things to do, you’ll find a series of Make it videos.  They are all short in length and easy to follow, and they give you lots of ways to encourage wildlife to your garden so that you can help all garden wildlife. 

Make it with help from the WWT - they have got some great videos to help you!

The WWV videos show you how to make things such as...

• A mini pond
• A toad hall
• A LEGO bird table
• A bird feeder
• Yoru own binoculars
• A bird hide
• A water cycle in a jar
• Your own t-shirt bag
• An upcycled bird feeder
• A bug hotel
• Eggy cress aniamls
• A nature star

They all come with an activity sheet in PDF format that you can download, too

The Discovery Wetlands pages also have quizzes you can do plus for teachers and parents (or I presume anyone who would like to do it), there’s a 12 week home-learning programme with everything you need to teach key science and geography topics at home!

Don’t forget that the WWT has a number of different wetland centres you can visit around the UK – you can find the one closest to you here.

Help our wetlands!  They need your support

Please, please may I urge you to respond to WWT's call to give the creations of wetlands our support? Wetlands Can is asking for all our support (signatures) for the creation of 100,000 hectares of healthy wetlands – including in urban areas – to help fight today’s wellbeing, climate and nature crises.

Find out more about Wetlands Can here

Pledge your support for Wetlands Can here

Images on this blog entry ©WWT

We have done lots of things to encourage wildlife into our garden in the last few years and we've been rewarded with lots of different species of birds.   We've also had a frog or two, and bees and butterflies, dragonflies and a couple of hedgehogs.  

Our neighbour is very good with identifying different types of birds and says he's spotted over 60 species of our feathered friends in the neighbourhood which is really good to hear.

Rewild your garden with tips from Springwatch

So far, in our garden we've....

• Put up a log pile (or more accurately, we've put a pile of logs in a quiet corner which the insects seem to like
• Put out a hedgehog house with a water bowl (also in a quiet corner so that the hedgehogs can have some peace)
• Stuck up a little bee house and a butterfly hotel
• Planted lots of flowers for wildlife - ones the bees and butterflies will LOVE!
• Put out two or three bird feeders
• Dug out a very small wildlife pond which we did in lockdown.  
• Let our garden overgrow in some parts and let the lawn grow, grow, grow

We love looking out of the window to see who is in the garden paying a visit and I'm sure there's more we can do to encourage the wildlife.  

Top 10 patio plants for bees

If you're looking for hints and tips, and ways to get started, a great place to start is the RHS website.  They have a particular section of the site for wildlife gardening and however much you have done already or want to do, there could be something there to spark off an idea or an activity.

Head off here to see their section on Wildlife Gardening.  Take it a step at a time;  it's the sort of thing you could do a step a month.

By the way, you could do something as simple as pot a plant for pollinators - just get a pot and stick some bee and/or butterfly friendly flowers in it.  All you need is the pot, soil, compost (and you can make your own) the seeds and a small space, so it's very easy to do.

Want to make a difference to wildlife?

One way to do this is to take part in surveys.   They give conservation charities a really good idea of what is happening across the country – so the more people who join in the better.  You don’t need to be an expert, just to take part.

Building up a picture of wildlife on our doorsteps help us tell if a species is in trouble and needs help.   For example, thousands of wildlife watchers have helped identify the loss of hedgehogs over 20 years.  Like the RSPB’s Big Garden Birdwatch, which has run for over 40 years now, surveys give a lot of local information which give great value to wildlife conservation because of the picture they build up.

It’s time for the PTES Living with Mammals Survey!

The 29^th March 2021 saw the launch of this year’s Living With Mammals survey.  All you need to do is to record the mammals you see every week and any signs they leave behind, such as footprints or droppings.

Spotting wild mammals, a PDF from the PTES
image © PTES

You can choose any green space to survey.

It could be a garden, an allotment, a local park or any other area that’s convenient to spend a little time in each week.   The site must be within 200 metres of a building.

You can share your photos online using #LivingwithMammals

PTES who run the survey aren’t asking people to survey public areas, but to survey in gardens and other private land.  If you’re not sure about whether to take part in surveys during COVID-19, check government guidelines and then decide if it is right and proper and safe for you to take part.

Register here (it’s free to do this and there’s the most gorgeous picture of a fox waiting for you)

Survey tips and hints are here such as when and where to look, tracking signs so you can work out who is who, a note on wildlife cameras and more.   Mammals are typically more active at sunrise and suntset.   Check walls, hedges, fences, grass verges and field margins – they all provide cover for mammals.

There are mammal fact files here.   Doing a survey is a great way to find out more about wildlife!

You can see the results of past surveys here – Living with Mammals started in 2003!

Visit the PTES website for more information

Give local wildlife their own wildlife corridors

PTES point out that connecting our gardens and patches of green such as grass verges and local parks enable animals to move between different features.  Make a CD sized hole in the bottom of a fence can really help them journey from one place to another – their own sort of motorway network, a wildlife corridor, if you like.  These can certainly help animals such as hedgehogs.   Visit Hedgehog Street, a campaign run by PTES and the British Hedgehog Preservation Society for more information..